Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson, starring in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land, meet for lunch in a West End restaurant at the request of a newspaper.

The setting is discreet and grand.

There, the two actors are to be specially photographed for The Observer .

Outside the restaurant, the roar of a motorbike is heard.

Enter SIR RALPH RICHARDSON.

He is dressed in a smart brown suit and an enormous cyclist's helmet, like a visor. He offers the helmet to the head waiter with the aplomb of an English gentleman handing over his bowler hat. Then he sits at a corner table and orders a vodka martini.

Enter SIR JOHN GIELGUD.

He is tall and elegant, pink and sunny, immaculately dressed. An acquaintance spots him and greets him warmly: 'Wish you were lunching with us, Johnny!'

The two actors meet and sit together. Both are very relaxed in each other's company, and fun. Words tumble out of Sir John, whereas Sir Ralph measures them carefully, as if squeezing out every syllable.

SIR JOHN: Come on the motorbike?

SIR RALPH: Best...way.

JG: The last time you took me pillion I practically had a fit. I was a stretcher case.

RR: I have been killed several times myself.

JG: Shall we have oysters?

RR: Good idea! And to follow? Fish and game go rather nicely together.

JG: I shall have roast grouse because I love it. I love roast grouse more than anything.

RR: Roast grouse is awfully good.

JG: I remember being taken to the Naval and Military Club as a very young man and being given oysters and grouse for the first time. I thought I really was living it up.

RR: Shall we live it up now?

JG: Certainly!

RR: You're looking very well, by the way.

JG: Thank you.

RR: I haven't seen much of you lately.

JG: We meet in costume.

RR: We meet as other people.

A waiter hovers.

RR: We're having oysters followed by grouse.

JG: You are, too? Oh, good.

RR: Wine?

JG: You're very good on the wine, Ralph.

RR: Let's have a small carafe of white wine with the fish and a small carafe of red with the game. I would like to have more, but dare not.

JG: We're all much more abstemious with drink than we used to be.

RR: I'm less abstemious. When I was young, I never drank during the run of a show, except on Saturday nights.

JG: Oh, I used to drink away like anything. On the first night of Much Ado , Peggy Ashcroft and I drank a bottle of champagne before going on and we never played so well in our lives.

RR: It would have terrified me. The spring wouldn't be there. Lowers the energy.

JG: But just think of all those brilliant people who couldn't function without a drink. I'm sure Barrymore couldn't have done it.

RR: Kean was the greatest drinker of them all, of course. Hot brandy. When he was playing Othello, he invented a false exit for himself so he could nip off for a brandy and come on again, fortified as it were.

JG: Do you think opera singers have a drop or two between their arias?

A waiter serves oysters. A waiter serves wine.

RR: A toast! To The Observer !

JG: May its building never be streaked.

RR: Did you see the charming Russian painting in the Times? Looked like a Nicholson.

JG: With the spires?

RR: Curious that Russia has never really produced a great painter.

JG: Diaghilev had some very talented people, but they were more designers.

RR: I wonder how painting could have escaped a nation like Russia.

JG: Very baffling country, Russia.

RR: And Leningrad?

JG: Very bleak.

RR: How are your oysters?

JG: Marvellous!

RR: The strangest thing happened to me when I was coming out of the theatre last night. I was walking down St Martin's Lane when a man suddenly shouted: 'Look! It's Sir John Gielgud!'

JG: But in America they always call me Sir Ralph Richardson. Perhaps it's because we've acted together over the years. We're almost like the broker's men in Cinderella .

RR: But would you say we look alike, Johnny? I was in France some time ago. Very peculiar. It was dark and my wife had gone down a little alley. I said: 'Mu, it's this way.' And a Frenchman appeared in the half light and cried: 'Mon Dieu! It's John Gielgud!'

JG: I've been stopped twice in London for Kenneth Clark.

RR: I should be most flattered to be mistaken for him.

They finish the oysters. Grouse is served.

JG: I was so angry with myself at the Garrick the other day. I just couldn't remember the name of an actor I knew. I haven't even remembered it now. Someone like Sybil Thorndike never forgets anybody.

RR: Never.

JG: She even remembers people she met in Australia.

RR: She remembers everyone.

JG: I have to look up the names of actors in Spotlight . Emlyn Williams used to turn over all the pages and whenever he saw a photograph of an actor wearing a hat he'd shout: 'BALD.' Emlyn could spot them.

RR: Pass the Paul Robeson.

Gielgud passes over a large pepper mill.

JG: A Russian came to see me after the show last night.

RR: A Russian! What did he want?

JG: He spoke terribly good English for a Russian. He said he was so glad he'd seen the performance because he felt he understood Harold Pinter at last. He said that No Man's Land is just a wonderful black comedy. It was such a relief to me. People get rather desperate about what the play means. I'm not sure I know either. Yet here was the Russian who accepted it simply as a black comedy instead of searching for endless symbolism and implications of every kind. I mean, I'm sure Harold's plays always have implications, but I don't think his intention is for the audience to spend the entire evening trying to solve them. I'm sure he's quite pleased if people go away and discuss the possibilities.

RR : Did you see that man walk out of the performance last night?

JG : The only time it's happened.

RR : Perhaps he was offended by the language.

JG : Yet it's very interesting how the elderly public remains so calm at all the expletives flowing from us on stage.

RR : Common parlance.

JG : I remember saying to my mother when I was a boy: 'Couldn't we go and see Uncle Fred in the Scarlet Pimp ?' And my mother replied:'If you ever use such language again I'll turn you out of the house!'

RR : There were times when it used to be thought that the legs of furniture were risqué. They used to put little crinolines round piano legs.

JG : Like a lady never revealing her ankles. How times have changed! I've never had anyone interrupt a play because of the bad language, except in Brighton, of course. When I was in Veterans whole rows got up and stormed out. 'Don't use THAT WORD in front of my wife.'

JG : I hear Peter Brook's coming over from Paris with a new production.

RR : Ah, Brook.

JG : You've never worked with him, Ralph. But I've done four or five productions and I'm devoted to him. Sometimes I wish he wasn't quite so eclectic.

RR : Eclectic? What does the word mean?

JG : What does it mean? Special, I think.

RR : Sounds Greek to me. Greekish sounding word..

JG : I suppose it must be Greek. But the only man I've known who had the same quality as Brook was Komisarjevsky. He was an architect, a designer, a painter, a director. Enormous talent and knowledge. I think Lindsay Anderson is so brilliant, but he hasn't got the charisma of Brook. Peter's a sort of world figure. I often long for Lindsay to have the same appeal and success. I think he would do marvellous work if he had a little more appreciation.

RR : What was that terrible production Brook did? Of course, he's done such amazing stuff. Parts of A Midsummer Night's Dream were among the most brilliant theatre of our time. But that ghastly thing. You were in it.

JG : Oedipus ?

RR : That's it! Awful.

JG : Oh, I thought it was extraordinary. I'll never regret doing it. I wasn't very good in it. I didn't know how to do what he wanted. But you know, there were terrible rows between Brook and Olivier. When Olivier saw this great phallus on the stage of the Old Vic he thought the theatre would be closed down by the police. Brook wouldn't give in, though. They were arguing in the dressing room. So I left them to fight it out between them. When I came back a huge mirror had a crack right through it. It was like the Lady of Shalott. I long to know which one of them did it.

RR : When I went to see the production, somehow I hadn't got a programme. So I said to Mu: 'Leave it to me.' And I went down the aisle up to a chap, but he was lashed to a pillar. I didn't know what was going on. It turned out he was in the show. I think he was in the chorus. But the show hadn't started yet. Mu said: 'Did you get a programme?' And I had to say it wasn't possible because all the programme sellers were lashed to the dress circle. Very strange.

JG : Oh, dear! It's like the old lady who went to Wesker's Roots and they cooked a meal on stage during the first act. Onions and a frightful stew. The lady went up to a programme seller and said: 'Isn't there a rather curious smell in this theatre?' And the programme seller replied: 'It's the play, madam.' But what did the poor actor who was lashed to the pillar say to you?

RR : Well, of course, when I asked him for a programme all I got were these strangled sounds. He was gagged you see. The whole experience upset me very much. I'm a very square man.

JG : Yes, you are. But you're also very clever, Ralph. You can be very suspicious, but once you overcome it you're enormously interested and warm. Unlike me, you're cautious. Which is quite right.

RR : Very, very cautious.

Enter Miss Jane Bown, the photographer from The Observer. The two actors greet her most courteously.

RR : It must be so difficult being a photographer. It's a hobby of mine! But whenever I try to photograph anyone they always look as if they've been hit over the head with a meat axe.

JG : I think I'd rather be photographed than drawn. David Hockney did a drawing of me when I was 70 and I thought if I really look like that I must kill myself tomorrow.

RR : It wasn't too bad, Johnny.

JG : It's awfully difficult to reconcile yourself with your image at any age, I think. I couldn't get over Garbo being 70 the other day. Did you see that photo of her? It really shocked me. Photography is rather a terrifying medium. Look at Richard Avedon's pictures. Merciless! He photographed me once and asked me to cry for him. So I thought of everyone I loved and the tears flowed like mad. But he never published the picture anywhere. Two hours of crying for nothing. I was very cross.

RR : The trouble is I can never remember who I am whenever I'm photographed. Who am I? I find I'm no one in particular and it tends to emerge in the photos. Is the light all right, Miss Bown?

JG : It's strange. I never feel secure whenever I'm photographed in costume at dress rehearsals. You're not yet the character that's being photographed. When you've been playing a part for a little while you get the right face for it. You can see it.

RR : It's fascinating what part of your body feels right when you're preparing for a role. I don't know whether you find this but I sometimes find it starts to come to me in my... feet. You can feel secure in your feet. The role comes gradually with various parts of the body. It doesn't fill the anatomy at once. Sometimes the voice is behind. Other times, I feel very secure in my ... eyes.

JG : Marvellous grouse!

RR : Absolutely wonderful! I went to a restaurant in Hollywood once and had the most frightful lunch. When they asked me to pay I made the only joke I've ever cracked in my life. I said: 'The only thing you've cooked is the bill.'

Short pause.

RR : Aren't you nice, John? The way you laughed at my only joke. Jolly nice of you!

JG : Have you ever had a really marvellous Indian curry?

RR : Nothing like it!

JG : I had one in Ceylon. I went to Government House and we had an all-curry lunch. Had to rest for three hours afterwards. It was unbelievable!

RR : I know! I once had a curry in Bombay. There's a millionairess there who lives in a fantastic palace. Talk about food of paradise! Afterwards I said to her: 'It must be marvellous to be a millionairess, as you undoubtedly are. And this superb curry! How could you possibly find a chef to make it?' And she replied: 'There's only one chef in this palace and that chef is me.' Imagine it! The Indian millionairess had gone to market at five o'clock that very morning to select the ingredients herself. Probably bearers to carry her back.

JG : How splendid! Have you been reading Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday ?

RR : Wonderful! I'm so glad you gave it to me.

JG : Don't you think it's clever?

RR : I savour it sip by sip. What a writer!

JG : Don't you find Indians are so extraordinary? When I was in Bombay at the end of the war I was lying naked in my hotel room when the telephone rang. A voice said there was a lady to see me. Well, I'd been flying all week and was too tired to see anyone. But five minutes later the door burst open and an enormous Indian lady in a green sari looked at me trying desperately to cover myself with a tiny towel and announced: 'My name is Mrs Sabawala. My house is music in stone. Will you come to lunch tomorrow?' It turned out she had played Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit with the local amateurs. Her house had a huge gate with a cardboard crescent moon pinned to it. Nothing to drink.

RR : Nothing to drink!

JG : And terrible chairs. As you sat down your back was lacerated by the teak. You had to practically go down on your hands and knees to look out of the windows. The whole thing was absolutely mad! There was a tiny poet in a white suit who read a long poem he'd written in my honour. It once happened with Alan Ginsberg in New York too. I seem to inspire poetry in strange people. But I was so startled by the Indian poet that I stepped back in alarm and fell in a pool covered in lilies.

RR : My God, what you suffer! Not that you care, Johnny.

JG : Couldn't have happened in England, Ralph.

The two famous actors laugh and finish their lunch.

John Heilpern is theatre critic for the New York Observer and is the official biographer of John Osborne

This piece appears in How Good is David Mamet, Anyway? by John Heilpern (Routledge £14.99). To order a copy for £11.99 plus 99p p&p, call Observer CultureShop on 0800 3168 171

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